Enemies adapt to military air power

The failure of Israel’s air campaign in Lebanon to be decisive brings up an old question: How useful are advanced aircraft in real war? Do modern militaries spend too much on whiz-bang gadgets that don’t work?

Not infrequently one sees amateur strategists issuing blanket indictments of air power.

It is a witless formulation.

To begin with, advanced military aircraft work very well indeed at what they are designed to do.

Examples abound. The Pacific war in World War II was largely an air war, determined by advanced weaponry.

In both Gulf wars, technologically advanced aircraft were instrumental in destroying the Iraqi military.

But what happens time and again is that militaries get carried away by the power and imagined invincibility of their air forces and forget that there are things they can’t do well.

An advanced fighter-bomber is fine for destroying a point target, such as a power plant. It is next to useless for fighting guerrillas spread through a city.

An intelligent enemy is going to ask what his high-tech opponent cannot do.

This is why recent wars against modern nations have been fought by guerrillas hiding in cities, jungles or other broken terrain.

Fighting where U.S. air forces can get at you is a losing proposition. So you do something else.

The question becomes:

Why does air force after air force promise more than it can deliver?

Why are bright and well-informed air staffs so often taken by surprise?

They know their aircraft intimately, because they fly them.

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